Paranoia or Anxiety?

I am very new, in fact I just registered.
The reason I registered is because I saw a post from someone else that really reminded me of an issue I am currently dealing with but with a different reason.

I've always been the kind of person that would ask "what if" at an extremely early age to now because of fear of the unknown. I never realized it as an issue until my fourth grade year when my anxiety started to show itself in the ugliest way. No one knew what was wrong with me and I didn't know what was wrong with me. I never knew mental illness was a thing.
Through the years, I've developed irrational fears stemming from the anxiety.
I was professionally diagnosed in November of 2013. Nothing was done to help.
The whole goal of everyone around me was to keep me off of medication but now I think it's ruining my life.

The constant fear, paranoia, and high vigilance I have throughout the day being alone is exhausting and every sound of situation in my mind feeds it all. I can't stop looking over my shoulder, feeling like someone or something is always there. I cannot think back to any trauma and neither can my family. I've just always been scared. Scared of people and things I don't understand.
The intrusive thoughts about absolutely terrifying things that can and WILL happen to me in my lifetime playing over and over and over again in my mind before bed strains my sleep thin and I dread going to sleep at night.And they're not thoughts like my day time thoughts which are to lock all the doors and windows and draw my blinds and board up my bedroom door to sit in here all day - they're thoughts about my life and what is to come and what I'll be dealing with until the day I pass.

I have panic attack after panic attack and it exhausts me to sleep and that's no way to live for me.
I constantly go to the doctor to get help where no help is given.
Recently, I've had to go in because of my heart fluttering randomly and near-fainting and I know for a fact it's because of the anxiety. It's slowly eating away at my life and my doctor wants to keep me off of anti-anxiety medications for fear I'll gain more weight.
I've exhausted all other ways to cope with it that are healthy and wont damage my life or well-being and I'm left with the only option being medication.

But all of this has left me with the question... How? How do I cope with this? How can I sleep? How can I calm my mind? How can I stop looking over my shoulder?
I fear that I'm asking too much of my doctor asking for him to see me for symptoms because he cannot fix what I have. He can't take away the anxiety or the depression but the symptoms are becoming too much.
Should I just go and be honest? I feel like our meetings are so strained and like I'm being timed every single second I am there.

I'm far too poor to keep going or to get a therapist.

I've been fearful too, from a very early age- probably around three or four. In my case I'm wondering if it was a case of PANS or PANDAS. Not that I haven't had traumatic patches, but I don't know- I do seem to be awful fragile without a absolute reason why.

I've thought about meds, I can feel the stress eat away at my body and health. I probably look ten years older than I am, by this point. And I feel it.

I'd just be like hey Doc, I'm not coping, I gotta have something to take the edge off of all these fears that eat at me. I mean I know doctors be all about weight, but unless we're talking about seriously high unhealthy levels of obesity... they set the bar for 'obese' way too low, IMO. Life's no good if your brain is gonna torture you day and night. I know I get so very tired. Being in frequent Fight or Flight is pretty tiring.